You Can Get Better Without Beating Balls

Tiger Woods news drops and we react in real time, not with hot takes, but with the questions every golf fan has when the spotlight hits the biggest name in the sport again. It’s a quick reminder that golf stories can turn fast, and that public pressure has a way of magnifying every detail whether it’s fair or not.

From there, we pivot to the part of golf we can actually control: how we practice and how we improve. We unpack lessons from a coaching summit and talk about using technology like TrackMan and force plates without drowning in numbers. The goal is simple: focus on what moves performance. That means knowing which metrics matter for each club, avoiding traps like chasing smash factor with irons, and respecting a few non negotiables while still leaving room for your swing DNA.

Then we get tactical. We outline a realistic driving range practice plan for golfers with jobs and limited time: do your drills at home, treat the range like a dress rehearsal, buy the small bucket, and give every shot a routine. We dig into wedge distance control through better contact and lower trajectory, iron practice that trains “miss patterns” by playing pins, and driver work built around setup consistency, alignment sticks, and a dependable shot shape. We finish with short game and putting, including a lag putting drill that trains speed feel at impact so you stop giving away stress free pars with three putts.

If you like practical golf coaching you can use today, subscribe, share this with a buddy, and leave a review. What part of your game would you build first: driver, wedges, or putting?

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Transcript

Tiger Woods Crash Reaction

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Measured Golf Podcast where you, the listeners, sit down and join Chuck and I as we discuss all things golf. And while we were thinking about what we were going to talk about and kind of going through a few things, the news has broken. Unfortunately, it does not look like Tiger Woods is improving his odds of being at Augusta here in a couple weeks, as the news just kind of broke that Tiger has been involved in yet another car accident. So uh we're probably gonna touch on that a little bit and then we'll kind of get into the rest of the podcast. But nothing moves the needle when golfed quite like Tiger Woods. And unfortunately, he's had another accident with a vehicle. And Chuck and I were just talking about this, but you know, at a certain point, man, you gotta you gotta give up the keys. And uh, you know, it it still blows my mind that Tiger's still driving himself around. I really I mean the guy obviously has enough money to hire a driver and and just take a car service, but pretty, pretty sad stuff, man. I was I was holding out hope that I was gonna see him in a couple weeks. Yeah, it we were just talking.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

I I really hope that there's not some blood talks report and he's got something in him. I I really hope that's not the case. Um and I don't have they said uh I've been kind of off of Twitter this afternoon. Have they said anything about him? Did he go to the hospital?

SPEAKER_02 1:32

Uh I saw an update on the report that said one of the there were two people involved, two-car accident. One of the people refused to go to the hospital, one of the people did go to the hospital, but were in stable condition, and it doesn't sound like there were any uh major injuries. And if I had to guess, I would say Tiger was probably the one to refuse going to the hospital. Yeah. So I know there's a uh press conference with the sheriff. Uh it's 5 10 p.m. local time, eastern time. Uh, and I know that they are uh doing I think the sheriff is talking to the media right now, but I am not following along with that. Looks like the crash happened just after 2 p.m. Um I'm not seeing uh I'm not seeing any kind of update other than that.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

Was another car involved? Or I believe so.

SPEAKER_02 2:28

I think it was a two-car accident.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

So well, may maybe in a weird way, this like if he didn't if he's not hurt and he didn't go to the hospital, maybe in a weird way he wants to get some positive PR going and this forces him to go play in a couple weeks.

SPEAKER_02 2:46

It would be the easiest way to get people to move past another vehicle accident for sure. Um I just, you know, the thing that makes me think is and and honestly, you know, this is all speculative. Um I don't know anything. I'm not saying these are facts, but I think I don't necessarily know that we got the whole story with with the accident where he almost lost his leg. Um I I think that a lot of that was swept under the rug. And it just cars get in accidents all the time. That that's not abnormal. Um, but for a car to be, you know, rolled or on its side or whatever, there was some pretty aggressive maneuvering happening. And like you said, I just I hope there's not something that first off, I hope that obviously nobody was hurt. Yes. But secondly, you know, I hope that you know, how do you roll a car? I mean, do you veer into the oncoming lane and then jerk it back and then lose control? Like you're there's gonna have to be some explanation.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

What's that? I mean, you're moving at some speed to be able to do that, right? Yeah, you're not going 15 miles an hour and flipping your car, so no, I don't know. I I'm like you, I'm I'm hopeful that nobody is seriously injured, and I also hope that nothing was in his system.

SPEAKER_02 4:16

You would hope at two o'clock in the afternoon. I hope.

SPEAKER_01 4:20

Uh that would be that would be pretty rough. Yeah. So and be hard to it's it's gonna tarnish the image a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 4:31

Yeah, I mean, I I I feel like Tiger hasn't done himself any favors since he, you know, let's just call it like it is. The guy's more or less retired from golf, uh, hasn't hasn't been a factor in in quite some time. And, you know, I don't, you know, unfortunately, he's one of those people, man. They want to catch him with his hand in the cookie jar. And that that's always going to be the case. It's you don't hear about the things that Michael Jordan does in a positive light. You hear about, you know, the the the stories and and the gambling and and you hear that stuff. So, you know, I think Tiger, unfortunately, uh, and not fair to him in any way, shape, or form as a human being, but Tiger is is one of those people that just has to do it cleaner than anybody else. Yeah. But we'll see.

New York Coaching Summit Takeaways

SPEAKER_01 5:21

One of the negatives of having that big a spotlight on you. Um well, let's uh let's flip it. Let's talk about, let's recap the week of coach Michael Dutrow in New York.

SPEAKER_02 5:35

And the week of Mr. Hudson. I mean, I'm really disappointed that it's it's not there. Like, where's the trophy?

SPEAKER_01 5:44

I know we it was a large trophy, so I asked if they could ship it to me. I didn't want to bring it back on the plane.

SPEAKER_02 5:49

Oh, fair enough, fair enough. I forgot you you were having to schlep it back uh from Florida. You didn't get the uh usual the usual uh mic trip.

SPEAKER_01 5:58

So unfortunately, uh m Macaulay took us down, but uh it was Delta back.

SPEAKER_02 6:04

Yeah. I I love flying Delta by the way, unless they cancel my flight on me and then tell me that I have to eat the hotel. So yeah, uh yeah, that that wasn't the best. But no, it was a great trip to New York. Um I kind of always think of New York City kind of as kind of similar to having like Vegas rules that a lot of people have for themselves, where it's like no more than three days at a time. Uh so I was I was happy to go. Uh amazing facility there at Five Iron, uh nine locations in New York City. But awesome, awesome facility, man. Like they do such a good job with making golf kind of cool and fun, and the atmosphere is great. Uh, they have not cheaped out, you know, it's they're using track man there. Uh they're bringing force plates to their facilities. But being a part of that coaching summit was was really cool. Um, you know, it's it's actually the first time I've been around uh Mike Jacobs from Jacobs 3D. Uh we've never really crossed paths in the past. And uh I thought obviously a very smart individual knows a whole lot about the human body, uh, an expert, definitely when it comes to 3D motion capture and force plate stuff and kind of combining the two. So I thought it was really cool to kind of get to spend a little bit of time with him and talk to him and all the other presenters were amazing. And yeah, it was a fun trip. And it's always it's always fun for me to be able to share information that hopefully is going to help other coaches uh be better at coaching golf because that's kind of leaving leaving the industry in a better, better place than I found it. And I that's what I really care about. I I like helping the other coaches. I like giving them some stuff to kind of think about and chew on and and give them actionable things to where they can go and coach that afternoon and maybe have more of an impact with their people. But yeah, awesome trip, man. I uh I enjoyed it. Got to do a little bit of seeing the city. Uh, but like I said, you know, three days in New York City when you're a Midwestern guy, uh, it's time to go.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

But uh for those that don't know, you spent one day at a it was like a coaching summit, right?

SPEAKER_02 8:20

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

And and you spent, you presented, did others present also?

SPEAKER_02 8:26

Or is it just yeah, I think there were five other presenters, including me, uh, all very distinguished people, all very different things they brought to the table. And then the second day I was there uh working exclusively with five iron coaches, kind of bringing them up to speed with the force plates and and how we use those and and what what kind of are the difference makers and and what are those things that you're gonna spend the bulkhead of your time doing? And what are those things that quite honestly just kind of get in the way? It's you know, you've been on the force plates, I've had you on the force plates. Uh, there's a lot of information there. And similar to track man, I think we're up to like 42 data tiles. You know, what are the things we should be paying attention to versus what are the things that, you know, are nice to know, but really not the things that we should be spending a lot of time focusing on. And the number I always like to pick on when it comes to track man stuff is a lot of people love to pay attention to smash factor. And the only time the smash factor is really relevant is when we're hitting our driver. Uh, the rest of the time you see people chasing these really high smashes with like a seven iron. And it's like, well, we're not trying to hit a seven iron like our driver. It it shouldn't be one four two, one four three. I think the average smash factor for a seven iron on the PGA tour is like one three three. So we don't want to be chasing these numbers that are cool to look at and and actually accurate, however, don't really move the needle in terms of performance. So it's just kind of fun to do that through the lens of force plates and what force plates provide.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

I think to that point, it's um it's really nice having a guy like yourself that understands it um not only to know what you're looking at, but also to know what is um, how do I say this? Like what may be not optimal, but it may not be optimal because of this is a key DNA piece of your swing, but you do uh something else better, and you're not always trying to chase everything being 100%. I think that's a huge piece of what you do of being able to digest and fully understand and then explain, hey, we may not be optimal here, but it's okay because XYZ.

SPEAKER_02 10:54

Yeah, it's it's definitely one of those things. Um there there are some non-negotiables for me, you know, and and I would say that's true with track man as well. You know, if you have a this is an extreme example, but if if you have a positive attack angle with a seven iron in your hands, you know, like nobody good does that. Like, that's not something that we can just look past and go, well, that's okay. That's something to where we have to step in there and we have to fix that. Um, and there's things like that with with the force plates in terms of how much pressure we get into our trail side, how that pressure is moving underneath our feet. Uh, there's some there's some fundamental things there that have to happen. Same when it comes to force production and and the sequencing of that force or the of those forces uh and the timing of those forces. Like there's there are some very fundamental things, but to your point, you know, I I think you really have to look at the human being in front of you and go, hey, you know, we've got these three ground reaction forces we're kind of dealing with, and we have to use all three. And, you know, if you're a decent player, you're probably really good at one and maybe struggle a little bit with two. If you're a really good player, you probably do two really well and struggle with one of them. And then if if you're really performing at a high level, and you know, maybe you're like a long drive guy, or you or you're really one of these, you know, great athletes that really can do a lot of things wonderfully with a golf club in your hands, it's like, okay, well, we've got two out of three, and maybe we go chase that three a little that third one a little bit and see if we can't get greedy and and kind of do all three things well. But generally we're trying to get two out of three, uh, to your point. And, you know, given your makeup and the and the way that your body is, you know, generally we can do some pretty good damage with two out of three, which we saw uh this past week down at uh down in Florida. Yeah. Yeah, Florida was fun. Um, yeah, I mean, go ahead. You can brag on yourself a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

We uh my partner and I, um Mr. Jacob Hill, shout out to him uh for being my host at the uh Mountain Lake Member Guest and first uh event of the year. And we kind of your typical nine-hole matches, flights didn't lose a match. Um it was still tight though. As most of those are when you're in those upper flights, everybody's good. Um we got to be around some great people in our flights and um some really talented players. And we were uh very honored to represent the first flight uh and breaking out of that and and taking home some hardware. Uh got lucky with some great weather, and it was hard coming back to reality.

SPEAKER_02 13:57

Yeah, isn't it always welcome to welcome to Michigan 71 day, 30 the next. You know, but we kind of talked and debriefed a little bit, and luckily you had some video to share with me. But uh, you know, not only did you did you win the first fight, but got to the shootout and actually did quite well in the shootout as well.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

We did. Yeah, we we were all the way to the finals, and um hats off to this guy who hit I think it was like from 180 out of the rough, lands this ball short of the green, it bounds onto the green, catches a slope, trickles back towards the pin, almost goes in. They had a tap in for birdie, so hats off to them for the shot of the year that I've seen so far.

SPEAKER_02 14:44

Um we already have Yip Strickler investigating this, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

I know, I know Michael got Michael got on him. Um but man, there's nothing like there's nothing like the juices that get going in um those kind of pressure situations, and especially to start the shootout. I mean, the the juices you get are there's nothing like it. And it's so much fun. It's almost like when it finishes, there's this massive exhale and all the adrenaline just leaves you and you realize how worn out you are.

SPEAKER_02 15:20

Yeah, I mean, I I since I've known you, I think you took the longest break you've taken uh since you've been back. I know we we got back after it the other day, but I think you took three or four days off, which is almost unbelievable with you.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

Uh that would be a lifetime with me. Um, but it was a long week and didn't realize how worn out I was. And to your point of last week, talking about getting some good sleep, uh, didn't sleep great throughout the event, but I usually don't sleep well away from home, anyways. Um, had nothing to do with the accommodations, they were fantastic. Um yeah, I was worn out. It was nice to feel like I could put the clubs down for a second, but it's it's always easier to do that when you play well and good things are happening. You feel like you can put it down for a second. I'm sure if it'd gone poorly, I would have been grinding away.

SPEAKER_02 16:13

Well, you're off to a heck of a start this year. I mean, it's you shot 69, I think a few weeks or a couple weeks ago.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

Right before we left, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:22

Yeah, already a broken par, uh, have seen some some really good performance and you know, some tournament play, if you will, uh, or metal play, I should say. Uh yeah, man. I mean, that's that's exciting stuff for you and a testament to your hard work. So, like I said, he's not just a pretty face, but the guy can play some golf too.

Build A Smarter Range Practice

SPEAKER_01 16:42

Oh, we've I've been really blessed. Got a good good team uh atmosphere here with me and Michael and grinding it out together, going over the wall together. Over the wall, baby. Yeah, last week we we talked a lot about the tournament prep. Um I I thought another piece to that to add on would be um and maybe this is selfishly a topic that I would like to see covered. When you're with your when you're coaching and you're with your your guys, your professionals, what are things during the actual practice time? We're we're you know, instead of just going out after work and beating balls for 30 minutes and calling it a day, what are some things especially for guys like myself, we've got jobs, we're you know, we don't have all day to be out there and play 18 holes. What would be some things you would would highlight as far as all right, you've got an hour, two hours after work, or you've got some time on the weekend. What should we be doing in our practice time? We hit the range. Give us some things you think are are pretty critical skills that we need to be tapping into instead of that just hit and rake, hit and rake. Uh I know last week we talked about being intentional with the shots we're hitting, but um what do you think a good practice plan might be for the driving range? And then we can maybe switch over to the short game area.

SPEAKER_02 18:28

Yeah, I mean, I I think I think it's always a difficult sell when it comes to practice. And you know, Alan Iverson, we're talking about practice. Um I think it's always difficult because I think for so many people, you know, they they they treat golf as a game because it is a game to them, right? The problem is is that people really care about the outcome of this game, but I think so many people kind of treat it as a game not that dissimilar from maybe the game of Monopoly. And you know, I have a Monopoly board, you probably have a Monopoly, like everybody's got Monopoly at their house. And when you go to somebody's house, like they play Monopoly with house rules, and everybody just kind of feels like they can do what they do and should expect to win every time without much thought or without much effort. But if we want to compete in the Monopoly World Championships, well, then we have to play by the rules, and that's where there's this gear that kind of switches, right? To where now it's not about just having fun and playing a game. Now it's more about performance and actually seeing the outcome that we're chasing. So I think when we think of practice, I think a lot of people envision that at the golf course, at the driving range, at these at these golf specific places. And where I think people would really benefit the most is by doing their practice, quote unquote. I'm doing air quotes if you're watching on YouTube, but doing the practice at home away from the actual skill of hitting a golf ball. I kind of think of a if of a driving range and hitting golf balls as a rehearsal, like a dress rehearsal, if you will. And I feel like we talked about intentional practice last week. Um, and I think when we go to the driving range, I think the best thing you can do is buy the small bucket instead of the large and give every shot that full routine, kind of like we talked about last time. But when it comes to what you just said, which is, hey, I have a job, you know, this is something I really enjoy doing, but it's not, it's not really, you know, my whole livelihood or anything like that. It's it's getting this idea that practice can happen daily or three or four or five times a week, and it can happen in like a 10-minute interval. But that's where I think working with somebody that's giving you drills and giving you things to do off the golf ball that help your body kind of organize, I think doing that stuff away from the golf course, away from the driving range is super powerful because then when we go to the driving range, we can start testing out a lot of those new feels against what that creates within the ball flight and what needs to kind of adjust and what needs to change. But I think doing a lot of drill specific things at your house for five, 10 minutes a day, I think that's really a lot more valuable to a golfer than going and bashing balls and raking balls over and bashing another ball uh like you were describing. A lot of people tend to do.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

So, what I hear you saying is the Feels or the drills that you're working on. You need to be doing that at home. In front of a mirror or get your phone out, filming yourself. Yeah. And then when we get to the range, now we're kind of and I would assume you're okay, or you tell you tell us. Are we hitting you good with us hitting some balls to like trying to get the feel worked in before we're like, okay, now let's be intentional. Let's get behind one. Let's put that feel into like here's a real swing.

SPEAKER_02 22:33

Yeah, I mean, I I I think, you know, there's so many motor learning experts out there now, and they've really kind of bastardized, you know, block practice. And and I really don't have a problem with block practice. And and honestly, if if I go to the driving range, I'm probably gonna kind of block it out. And you know, I'm gonna hit uh quite a few seven irons, I'm gonna hit quite a few five irons, and I'm gonna hit quite a few faraway woods, and then a few, you know, like I don't I don't necessarily have a problem with that. I don't think that if I'm getting ready to go playing an event that I should be practicing that way. I should be kind of more playing golf on the driving range and really rehearsing what I intend to do on the golf course. Uh, but I don't have a problem with block practice per se. And I definitely think, you know, we we need to kind of think about, you know, let's say you you take my advice and you buy the small bucket instead of the large. Okay, great. Well, you know, maybe the first maybe that's 30 balls or whatever it is. I think that's normally about the number of a small bucket. But let's say maybe the first 10 are going to be kind of like you were talking about, where we're hitting some balls, trying to incorporate those feels, trying to make sure it feels like we're doing that. And then maybe the last 20 of that, we're actually quote unquote playing golf on the driving range and hitting different clubs and really trying to see if we can't get that feel worked into our new motor pattern. But, you know, I think the big thing is this really has more of a rhyme and a reason to it than just showing up to the driving range and doing whatever kind of comes to you. This is where, like, you know, you're working with somebody, you've got the drills that you're doing at home, now you're testing the drills at the driving range, and now you're putting the the work into play when we get to the golf course.

SPEAKER_01 24:20

Yeah. Are we you're talking about block practice? Um, so you're okay with um uh and I would I would say you need to make sure you've got some premium balls uh to make it.

SPEAKER_02 24:40

That's tough, right? I mean it it depends on where you practice, but yeah, I mean that would be the best case, and it yeah, even if you don't, like but I go to a place called Shanks, it's like close to where I live in a rural place. But I go to this place called Shanks, and they're all used golf balls, and like you have a bunch of decent balls in there, and then you have like a whole bunch of like top flights and and pinnacles and things like that that have seen better days, but you know, maybe sort those a little bit and try to hit the junk ones when you're doing the block and try to save the better ones for when you're going and and doing your actual you know skill acquisition.

SPEAKER_01 25:16

Would you say that during that block is it um is it uh is it gonna be beneficial to laser out some targets and start doing some wedge, maybe ladder work of and if you're doing the wedge work, how granular are you getting or want to see your player get? I'm I know there's probably a range based on skill level, but let's let's say the the competitive amate golfer, are we hey, we need the every five yards, we need every 10 yards? Where where's that kind of fall for you with trying to do some block distance wedge practice?

SPEAKER_02 26:06

Yeah, like you said, I I mean I think a lot of a lot of that depends on where their skill level is. You know, I've I've heard stories of you know, some of the tour guys are are working off like a three-yard ladder uh with three yard increments, which is which is pretty crazy, but those guys can do that because they're the best in the world. Um, but you know, generally for me, I I think some of that's good. I do. Uh when we get to the driving range of those, so many, so many driving ranges are going to limited flight, uh, and and things like that with the golf balls that I I don't necessarily look, I think that's a great idea.

SPEAKER_01 26:45

I think ladders I think that's where I was going with the premium ball.

SPEAKER_02 26:48

Like you want to be yeah, you want something that flies realistic to what you play. Um if you don't have that, you know, I'm probably a little less concerned with the distance the ball is traveling and probably a little bit more concerned with how it's traveling there. Meaning that, you know, I really like seeing I really like seeing people mix up the wedges, mix up the yardages. Um, I really like seeing people bring the ball flight down with wedges. You know, one of one of the old things that I remember is probably one of the first things I really remember um hearing was that, you know, when I was in high school and I was talking to some college coaches and talking to some people that have played college golf, it was they want to see you hit your long irons really high and your wedges really low. And that's always kind of stuck with me in a way. But, you know, the the biggest problem that I see with golfers, and this this only gets exasperated as the handicap goes up. But one of the biggest problems I see is that so many people are practicing those like 30, 40, 50 yard wedge shots, which tend to give a lot of people problems, but they're like hoisting the thing up in the air. And it's really difficult to control your distance when you're hoisting it up in the air like that. So I really like seeing, you know, somebody, you know, maybe practice that a little bit with their 58 or their 60 or whatever their shortest wedge they have in the bag. But then it's like I also like seeing them maybe take like a sand wedge and try the same thing and see how much easier it is to kind of flight that thing down, which is going to just make it a lot easier when it comes to controlling the distance. So I I definitely like stuff like that. I think a ladder drill is great. Um, it's it's kind of difficult unless you have a target-rich environment uh to kind of figure that out. But you know, you can laser it per shot, you can do some different things there. But I really think working on trajectory and then really working on contact. I mean, I think I think that's key. If if you are kind of hitting it all over the face with a wedge, it's going to be very difficult to control your distance. So we want a really nice solid strike. Uh, we want a shallow divot. I can't say that enough. I know so many people that, you know, that they just drive the superintendents crazy uh because they're out there just going, you know, two inches deep on a wedge shot that's like 40 yards. And it's like, you know, Tiger, right? You know, Tiger can hit those beautiful wedges without even taking a divot. And I'm not saying we don't need to take a divot, but you know, we want to see it fairly shallow. We want to see him consistent. We want to see the strike point on the middle of the face, and then we want to kind of be able to control that dynamic loft um through, you know, managing the amount of shafling um and just get to where we can actually kind of bring that ball flight down and get it more where we're throwing darts versus just trying to lob them in there.

SPEAKER_01 29:47

Yeah, yeah. The with the irons, should you uh you call it playing pins? Is that a to develop some skill? Is that a good practice skill of saying, hey, I'm picking a target, these three balls are all going to finish right of that target, or these next three are all going to finish left. What do you think with an iron we could be doing contact work?

Driver Setup And A Reliable Shape

SPEAKER_02 30:15

I like that actually, you know. So the game is pins. Um, and I've talked to Chuck a lot about this. And, you know, it's basically, you know, decade for dummies, if you will. But if you have uh a pin on the, let's just say a pin on the middle of the green, you know, most people are like, oh, I I just aim at the middle of the green, and if it's a little left, that's fine. If it's a little right, that's fine. Where the ball finishes, I should say a little left, a little right, that's fine as long as it's on the green. But I I think taking a little a little wider a wider viewpoint of that, you know, let's say that there's a bunker on the left side of the green, there's a bunker on the right side of the green. Bunker on the right side of the green is very shallow, uh, very easy to get kind of up and down from. Bunker on the left is a little bit deeper, uh, a little more difficult bunker shot. So obviously we want to miss uh in the bunker on the right if we're going to miss, not the bunker on the left, which is going to be more difficult. So that is a okay, I'm gonna hit a shot, and no matter what, that golf ball is going to finish right of that pin. Because what we're doing is we're taking out that left bunker, which is deeper and more difficult, and we're really trying to protect ourselves from hitting it to the wrong spot on a hole. So extrapolating that out to our practice sessions, yeah, I think that's great. I I think, you know, and even once again, it goes to skill level, but you know, maybe it is three balls at a time and they're all finishing right. Then I'm gonna get three more and they're gonna all finish left of a pen. But I I think, you know, if you're if you're a better player, if you're a more accomplished player, uh, you know, I think start mixing that up, right? Okay, I'm gonna hit it. I've got a seven iron in my hands, uh, I'm gonna fly at 165 yards. I kind of know that about myself. Great. Okay, cool. Well, this one's right, next one's left, next one's right, next one's left. And just really see, you know, how much control we have over that. And, you know, you're really, really accomplished players. You know, this one's gonna start at the pen and fall left of the pen. This one's gonna start at the pen, fall right of the pen, um, versus like really altering your aim point uh and really having a lot of curve on those shots. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:34

And when we move back to the driver, um I think you've talked about you like to see one shot shape with the driver.

SPEAKER_02 32:45

If you're gonna block something, block your driver. And I mean block practice, not like block it. But yeah, block practice with the driver, just keep doing the same thing until you're tired of seeing it do the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 32:56

Do you um uh what do you see player do players struggle more with a right path, left path? What do you think people struggle more with when they're trying to work on their driver to see that one shot shape?

SPEAKER_02 33:15

You know, generally, like I just had a gentleman in here for a lesson earlier today, and you know, was just completely convinced that his driver swing was unique relative to his iron swing. And, you know, the deficiencies, because it's the same person swinging the club, the deficiencies tend to look a little less severe with the irons than they do the driver. So generally, if there's an issue within the irons, it's going to present itself with the driver. So this particular gentleman uh actually had an issue to where with his seven iron, he was about eight degrees downward with his attack angle and about four and a half, five degrees left with the club path. And you know, was hitting kind of like low kind of missiles with his irons, and he was like, Look how far it goes. And I'm like, Yeah, but it's not a functional shot because it doesn't have any stopping power. And you know, we we kind of had this conversation, and I, you know, I didn't jump ahead of him, but at the same time, I I knew what the driver problem was going to be, and he doesn't have any loft when he gets his driver in his hands, right? Because he kind of traps everything to create this speed. Right. And when you're starting, you know, when you have a seven iron in your hands, you have, depending on what kind of clubs you're playing, you have somewhere between, you know, let's say 30, 35 degrees aloft. Okay, well, great. If you de-loft it 10 degrees, you've still got a dynamic loft of 25 and life is fine. But if you're used to de-ofting your seven iron and you do a lot of practice with a seven iron, and then you grab your driver and you de-oft that thing 10 degrees and kind of make more or less the same motion, the same swing, you run out of loft pretty quick, uh, which was this gentleman's problem. But, you know, I I think when people go to the driving range, I think generally with the way the game is moved and it's all about speed and all about hitting bombs, I just think people hit way too many drivers on the driving range. And one thing that I know about me, and this doesn't make it right because I do it, it's just I know this about me. I hit very few drivers at the driving range, like very few. Yeah. Um, and I'm I'm considered to be a pretty good driver of the golf ball. Could I hit it farther? Sure. But in terms of like hitting it straight, keeping it in play, finding a lot of fairways, I'm your man. So, and I I just don't people ask me all the time, like, you must practice your driver all the time. I hardly ever practice my driver. Um, but it's, you know, really important, I think, that, you know, and this maybe isn't driver specific to answer your question exactly, but I think when it comes to driver in particular, you know, I think we got to have some alignment sticks down. I think we got to have one that's pointed at our target where we want this thing to land. I think that's important. But then I think also having a alignment stick perpendicular uh and where we want the ball to be in our stance is also critically important because the big thing that I see with people is that they have very inconsistent setups and stance width changes, alignment of the feet changes, excuse me, and ball position changes. And when you have kind of these variables, it's gonna be very difficult to kind of clone these shots one after the other.

SPEAKER_01 36:36

Do you think there's a um this is just me talking out loud? Is there a shot shape that is generally easier for people to hit with a driver? Like, do you see in general people can get the path more to the right? You see more of a drawer, or in general they they play more of a fade. And also what do you think is easier to hit with the driver? Like if you were someone trying to figure out what shot shape am I going to play?

SPEAKER_02 37:10

I mean, I I have a hard time I have a difficult time not saying that a fade is in your best interest. And the the reason I say that is because of the way that the clubs are designed and because of the way the ball is. And for so many golfers, you know, when they guys that have a ton of speed, if they hit it on the toe and get it moving left, done. It's gone, like it's gone. Like, it's why you don't see a lot of guys on tour trying to draw the golf ball. You see a lot of guys on tour trying to fade the golf ball, and those guys are living between, you know, one 170 and like 195, guys that have a lot of speed. If we're talking about more of the normal person, if we're talking about the seniors that are out there, you know, whipping the dew off the golf course for everybody. Like if we're talking about the normal golfers, they don't have much speed. Well, the problem with them is that they think that they're gonna maximize their distance by hitting a draw, which would be true if the ball hits the ground and runs out in the fairway. But the problem for those guys is that they don't always hit the middle of the face. And when you hit the golf ball on the heel, when you hit the golf ball on the toe, because they've done such an amazing job getting the gear effect to play into this so much less than it used to, the ball tends to underspend. And now the ball falls out of the sky. So now the guy that's out there whipping the do off the golf course, the ball falls out of the sky and it doesn't roll anywhere. So I really think that a fade, generally speaking, is going is going to produce more spin than a draw. And I think most people are going to benefit and have an easier time getting a fade onto the golf course and finding a lot of fair ways and maximizing their carry distance versus trying to hit the draw where every now and then we hit the duck hook and we got to get another ball out of the bag, or every now and then we have that one where we catch on the toe a bit and the ball falls out of the sky and we lose a bunch of distance. And now a relatively short part of four turns into a long one.

SPEAKER_01 39:25

I was watching um Matt Fitzpatrick the other day. He went through four different types of driver swings that he has. It was like a bomb is normal, uh one was a stinger, I can't remember what the fourth one was. Do you think it is beneficial to go through and maybe not have four, but have like here's my bomb, and here's my um here's my fairway finder, or here's my get it in play. Do you think it's beneficial to to do some block practice with that?

SPEAKER_02 40:08

Or yeah, I mean we kind of talked a little bit about that after your member guest, right? Like you sent me that video uh teeing off in the horse race, and my comment was I blinked and missed it. You know, it it was so fast and so quick, you know, and we talked about we want to I did hit a bomb there, by the way. You did hit a bomb, it was a quick swing. It was a quick swing, it was a quick short swing. Thank God you got great hands on you. Yeah, um you know, but we talked about that, and I don't think I'm talking out of school, and if I am, you can tell me to shut up. No, no, no, go for it. But um, you know, we talked about doing some intentional practice with your driver to where you try to make the slowest swing possible, yeah. And maybe the maybe the ball only flies 160, 170 yards, but it's hit out of the middle and it goes straight. And really trying to get comfortable with making that very deliberate, very slow swing because, like you were saying, you know, the juices are really flowing when you get under the gun. Um, and you really have a lot more speed at your disposal than you think you do because of the adrenaline factor. So the advice I kind of gave you was we want to kind of spend some time doing this intentional slow work so that when you find yourself in that situation again, it's you go, okay, I'm gonna bunt this thing out there 175. It's gonna speed up because you're feeling the juice. Yeah, and now all of a sudden, like that's your normal speed swing, even though it feels like you're deliberately going slow. Right. So to answer your question, yes, you know, there's obviously those times, those holes that present themselves, no trouble left, no trouble right, maximize your distance, you know, how off and and try to knock it out. Uh, I think that's totally fine. And I I definitely think, you know, for a lot of golfers, going to the driving range and trying to hit it hard, I think that's a good exercise. Um, but I also think that we want to have that swing to where maybe it's not the intentional slow work, but it's definitely a gear down, and it's definitely one of those swings to where, you know, six, seven, eight times out of ten, you're gonna find the middle of the face and the ball is gonna fly pretty straight. Because, you know, I would imagine if if we were gonna do a golf trip to Harbortown, you're not gonna be trying to bomb too many of those. Like that's a very positional golf course.

SPEAKER_01 42:43

No, and that's something that you and I have talked about. Um I call it like my bunt driver and it and the reason for the the bunt is this get it in play swing, but also because I don't enjoy hitting a three wood off the T. And I don't think there's so many times where it's like if I miss it a little bit, it would be 30 yards shorter than this like bunted driver. Um and so I never hit three wood off the T. And um I I do think that you're right that you've gotta have these you've got to have these fairway finders, or not even a fairway finder, but just a swing that you know it's not optimized, maybe, but I know exactly where it's going, and it's gonna be further than my three wood, and it's usually not getting offline very much.

SPEAKER_02 43:43

Yeah, I mean, I I I think it's funny, you know, I was talking to one of the players that I work with uh online, and he was he went out and played golf. He's down in Arizona, he went out and played golf, and he says that. He felt like he was swinging 60 to 75%. He didn't feel like he was taking full cuts at it. And he's like, I was playing with the guy I always play with, and I was hitting it 25 yards by him. And the the weird thing is that he normally hits it uh 10 yards shorter than this gentleman he was playing with. And they were trying to figure out what was going on. Like, did his buddy lose distance over the winter? Like, what's kind of going on? Yeah. And he said that he they they found a simulator to where you know they had uh access to a track man and he went and hit some balls on the track man while he was on this trip and found out that he was swinging it just as fast with this 60 to 75% effort swing that he was creating. And I think that's where people really go wrong is you know, people think when they're when they go to hit the bomb or the smash that they want to increase, you know, their effort level. But in reality, like if we coordinate things and sequence things well, it we don't have to worry about it nearly as much. Like we can rely on our body to do the work, rely on the club to do the work, and we can hit that ball just as far without necessarily like locking up and feeling all that to all that tension. Very similar to what we were doing uh yesterday in your lesson. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:24

Yeah, letting that uh losing a little bit of control in the back swing and the downswing and not letting the uh arms be the braking mechanism makes a huge difference, huge difference.

SPEAKER_02 45:38

Yeah, I mean you you kind of alluded to not really feeling like you were using your arms at all, and yet you could clearly and evidently see that the ball was going quite a bit farther.

SPEAKER_01 45:50

Oh, yeah, it was just jumping off the face.

unknown 45:52

Jumping.

SPEAKER_02 45:53

But once again, using the body, and you know, this is the analogy that I I use with people a lot, and it sounds a bit silly, but it's true. You know, you're big strong lad, work out, do all the right things. But if I put 200 pounds on the bench press, you know, you're gonna maybe do that three or four times because you're a big strong lad. But if I put 200 pounds on the leg press, you're gonna do that thing until the cows come home. So, where are we actually strong at? What do we actually use to create all this speed and distance? It's the legs. So getting people to kind of take the intention and the focus out of their hands and arms and get it into the lower body, like they're gonna be able to create way more speed, and then we can kind of trust our nervous system to kind of line that face up for us. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:40

Um, we've got a topic there for next week with some speed work on the range. I'm gonna hold that one till next week, but uh you were pumped. Yeah, it was fun. I mean, it was just nice not feeling like I had to do a whole lot to get this thing to to trampoline um off the face. Yeah, I mean it's it was pretty impressive, honestly.

SPEAKER_02 47:06

Yeah, I don't think you felt like for the first 45 minutes I knew what I was doing. Like I made you do a bunch of weird stuff, but it really uh really paid dividends.

SPEAKER_01 47:15

But I always I always just hang in there with I don't know if you're doing that's why you're like one of my favorite people to work with.

SPEAKER_02 47:20

Is I never say it feels I'm like, all right, just tell me what that's the thing I hate so much about working with new clients is like I don't have that rapport, I don't have that trust built in, and not everybody that shows up is necessarily ready to dive in the deep end and do something different. And like it's tough because for me, you know, looking at looking at this as an outsider looking in, it's pretty obvious what they're doing and what they're trying to do and what their intention is isn't working for them or they wouldn't be here. Yeah, so it's it's kind of like why won't they just let go and why won't they trust me? But I really enjoy uh my time with you and a lot of my other clients to where I do have the rapport, I do have the trust built in because to your point, like you'll let me do the dumbest things you've ever seen with you because you know it's going somewhere. And then once we kind of put those pieces together, you're like, whoa, like A, it feels way different, B, the results are way better, and C, I was never gonna figure that out, you know, doing what I normally do.

SPEAKER_01 48:23

Yeah, no, no, you gotta I think when you're getting instruction, you gotta be willing to um you you gotta be willing to to allow yourself to go to some spots that are not comfortable because if if if you were hitting it well, uh there's no reason to be taking the lesson and stay in your comfort zone. But you to to improve and to um expand your skill set, you gotta get uncomfortable and you gotta just like uh be willing to be there and in the I think that's what made Bubba Watson so great.

SPEAKER_02 49:00

I really do. Like, I'm not the biggest of Bubba Watson fans in the world, uh, by any stretch of the imagination, but just the the the the how would I say it? The willingness to experiment and the willingness to try pretty crazy stuff. And like, you know, we were kind of talking about practice earlier. You know, I I think practice, you know, let's let's say maybe you have had a bad day at work, you know, like maybe maybe you do just want to go hit some balls, get crazy with it. Do some crazy stuff, like try to hook one 70 yards, try to slice one 70 yards, like do some different things and kind of let yourself explore and kind of self-organize and and do some of these things. Because, you know, if if you only can do one thing and you know, that's all you got, well, if that one thing isn't working that day, where do you go? And if that's all you ever practice and that's all you ever experience, then what do you do with that? But you know, I I think you know, I and I I talk about this a lot with my juniors, especially the juniors, but you know, this whole idea of like practicing perfect is ridiculous. And people that want to hit every ball perfect, people that want to see the same ball flight every time, people that kind of want to live in this world to where they don't make mistakes, maybe don't play golf because golf is a game of mistakes. And going out to the golf course, going out to the driving range, you know, I'm not talking about in tournament play, but when you're out there just messing around or you're out there practicing, you know, really trying to hit different shots that are outside of your comfort zone, those are great learning opportunities for us. And I think so many people are afraid of that because they think they're gonna mess something up. But in reality, I think the only thing they're gonna do is grow from it.

Short Game Variety And Lag Putting

SPEAKER_01 50:54

Yeah. And if we go over to the and this may wrap us up, but go over to the short game, chipping green, putting green. And we kind of talked last week about it. Would you say the same um of getting one ball and um playing up and down game with yourself? Or are we gonna spend like I've got a little a little putting that um what's that putting thing that's got the little game?

SPEAKER_02 51:29

I think it's called the putting thing.

unknown 51:31

The putting thing.

SPEAKER_01 51:32

Yeah, and it's uh you know, I spent about five minutes on that, just like hey, getting my start lines fine, like kind of I don't, you know, you don't need 30 minutes, you roll a couple putts. Yeah. Well what what all would you see somebody do there? Um and is there any block practice that happens there? Or I mean don't get me wrong.

SPEAKER_02 51:53

I I think if if you're if you're searching, you know, if if you're having technique issues, you know, I think that always lends itself to block practice, okay? Uh and kind of being a little bit more repetitive and trying to figure something out. Um, but you know, short game in particular, man, like talk about like the easy bake oven of golf practice, you know, just keep trying different things, keep doing different things. Like, you know, hit one high, hit one mid, hit one low, uh, get out in the bunker. It's there for a reason. Uh, get in the deep rough, get in the in the short stuff, get find a bare lie. Uh, you know, find find these different situations and just kind of like you said, you know, maybe depending on you know how long the shots are hitting, you know, maybe drop every ball. I I I hate watching people give themselves a perfect glide, like drop it. Um, but you know, maybe hit three balls and and and play some kind of game to where there's a point system, um, and and kind of hold yourself accountable. But yeah, I I think, you know, really taking a few clubs, hitting different shots, playing up and down games is is phenomenal. I I think there's so many people, you know, go and maybe chip for five minutes, and every shot's like just kind of a straightforward chip. It's like, well, what are you gonna do when that straightforward chip doesn't work? Uh so being able to call on different shots, uh, to experiment, to play around with it, I think that stuff is is super, super helpful. And and once again, you know, maybe maybe they're not all winners, maybe they're not all great shots. Maybe you blade a couple, maybe you chunk a couple, but once again, that's that's how we learn. But I do like your idea too. I I forgot. I like your idea too, uh, kind of like what you were talking about with the putting. You know, when it comes to like putting work, you know, I like having stations. Uh, so maybe you've got your thing set up uh on a chalk line or something like that with a mirror, uh, all that kind of stuff. Like you got your station, and like maybe you maybe you do five minutes on your station, right? Like you said, to kind of calibrate and get get warmed up, and then go and and actually try to make some putts, you know, from inside 10 feet. Like I if I see one, I just saw it the other day. Uh it like I said, we've had a couple warm days here. Believe it or not, I actually went out to an outdoor putting, like a real live putting green just to roll some because the weather was nice, and just see guys smacking 20, 30 footers back and forth, like it's a waste of your time. You know, so go to the putts you can make, you know, if you want to really improve your score this year, work on inside 10 feet. But, you know, I think if you go out there, let's say, you know, we're not doing this tournament prep where we have one ball, let's say we have the typical three balls. Okay, cool. Well, if you go and you hit three putts from inside 10 feet and none of them go in the hole, maybe that's a good reminder to go back to your station and work on that a bit more and then kind of come back out, try again, see how it goes. But, you know, I think having stations kind of, hey, I'm gonna try to chip these balls, you know, these three I want within, you know, four four feet of the hole. Okay, cool. I didn't pull that off. Let's go back over here to where I got a little pile of balls. Let's work on the technique a little bit more, then let's go back and retest. But I I I think all that stuff is really good. It's just you don't want to stand there and continually do the same thing time over time over time and expect to be variable and good at a multitude of different things when we get out on the golf course.

SPEAKER_01 55:38

The um the lag putting. Um you see you see Bryson with his like calibration thing he does. Um I've seen where guys put down alignment sticks and they are about uh they're they're parallel to each other and they're about two feet apart, and that's kind of like their landing zone. They're trying to putt the ball into this zone and they're kind of stepping things off. What what's a good lag putting drill or how would you acquire what would you do to acquire that skill or or elevate your skill of lag putting because you get on the golf course and I mean unless you're stepping everything off, which I guess which I think is good by the way.

SPEAKER_02 56:36

You like stepping it off? I I think you gotta give yourself a little bit of a of a understanding, you know, how far away from the hole are you actually. Um, you know, you get outside of of 20, 20, 30 feet, let's say, you know, even to that point, depending on your vision, like I wear glasses, as you can tell. Uh you know, I start struggling with understanding how far I am from the hole, especially if I don't walk up there. Uh, I've seen some research, I don't know how good the research is, but I've seen some research that outside of 20 feet, you should leave the flag in because it helps you uh kind of understand depth perception a little bit better. So I've seen some research on that. I I think there could be some validity there. But to kind of acquire the skill of lag putting to answer your question, you know, I like taking an alignment stick, and let's say, let's say, you know, three feet past the hole, we're gonna put down that alignment stick. Okay. Okay, and we're gonna go to 10 feet and we're gonna put three balls, and all three have to finish either in the hole or past the hole, but they can't hit the stick. Okay, okay, so that that's not that difficult. Okay, I think most people, you know, give them a couple tries and they'll figure that one out. Okay, cool. Well, you're gonna leave the alignment stick there, and now you're gonna move to 20 feet.

SPEAKER_01 57:59

And before we continue, do you are you someone that wants to see every putt finish past the hole? Yes.

SPEAKER_02 58:08

Okay, so you now in practice when it comes to in play, I'm very much aligned with Scott Fawcett. And if I said that you left everything outside of 20 feet one inch short, that would be wonderful. And I'm literally stealing that from Scott Fawcett before I hear it in the comments. I 100% agree with that. Okay. Um, I'm essentially lag putting to define it as really good lag putting. Like, what's the what's the benchmark here that we're looking for? If we can get the ball to finish within 10 feet, I'm sorry, 10% of the total distance of the hole, we've killed it. And that's why we have to be careful, like, especially if you go to let's say St. Andrews, where you got some double greens, you know, you get outside of 60 feet, and if you hit a really good pub from 60 feet, it's six feet to the hole. So, like, that's still, you know, not a guaranteed make by any means, uh, or any stretch of the imagination. So, you know, like I was saying, you know, we go to 20 feet and we do the same thing. We go to 30 feet, we do the same thing. We go, you know, you don't necessarily need to go to 40. You could uh if you really want to work on this, you could do these things, but that's how we start acquiring this skill and start developing this a little bit. What I really talk about, and I do this with all puts. Um, so if you kind of think of it, uh generally speaking, normal greens, uh 1.62 miles an hour at the hole is is perfect entry speed. It makes 74% of the hole available to you. Uh, but it's just fast enough to where the ball isn't deflected by impurities around the hole or kind of the the bowling that happens when they put the pen in or the hole in, I should say. So, you know, we dying speed, I think, is is no man's land. I think you're gonna see a lot of balls snap across the front of the hole at dying speed. So 1.62 is what track man defines as entry speed, which makes 74% of the hole available. But just to keep this as easy math, let's say, you know, more than two feet past the hole, we're gonna call that a five. Okay. Between the hole, I'm sorry, one foot past the hole. Between one foot past the hole and two feet past the hole, we're gonna call that a four. Front edge of the hole to one foot past the hole, we're gonna call that a three. One foot to the front edge of the hole, one foot short to one to the front edge of the hole, we're gonna call that a two. And more than one foot short of the hole, we're gonna call that a one. Okay, so you're gonna probably have to listen to that about 10 times to understand what I'm saying. I apologize, but it's a lot easier when I draw this for people on my whiteboard. But essentially, we now have a scale one to five, okay, with three being perfect. And what I make players do is I literally stand next to them while they're putting and I put the horse blinder on them and I hold my hand up so they can't see the ball traveling down the target line. And as soon as they hit that golf ball, they have to tell me what number it is. Is it a three? Is it a four? Is it a two? Is it a one? I want you to develop a feel for correct speed. I don't want you to see the ball and then go, oh, I hit that one good, or oh, I didn't hit that hard enough, or oh, I hit it too hard. I want you to know the minute you make impact with that ball, or the second you make impact with that ball, I want you to know, did you do a good job controlling the speed? So there's really good research about this. There's some really smart people who've looked into this, but this really starts honing us in on that speed control, which ties in really well with lag putting. So, you know, this is great to do from 10 feet out. This is great to do from 20, 30, 40, whatever, but really trying to understand what you have to feel to make the ball go that far versus just hauling back and whacking it and hoping it's the right distance.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:12

Yeah. That right there is something I think that everybody can take. Because you can just keep your head down and not look and just say it to yourself. Like, is it a one or is it a five?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:22

Say it out loud, though.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:22

You you gotta say it verbally out loud. Oh, okay. All right. Well, say it verbally. Everyone else in the putting green will look at you weird, but that's fine. I'm used to that. Um, but I think that's a great skill way to develop the skill because I don't know what you think, but I always feel like lag putting becomes such a lost piece of your round when you're having just an okay ball striking day, you're not necessarily around the cup, or you you're not flagging it, but the more times you give that stress-free to put, you may not be flagging it, but we're not making bogey. And we we are keeping we're keeping ourselves from having to get up and down, and but we're making that par very uh stress-free. And then the one or two times that maybe you do flag it, you make it, but I think that's such a lost art in a good round of golf not giving away two strokes because you two you're three putted twice because you can't lag putt very well.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:34

Well, most golfers, I mean, honestly, don't hit enough greens in regulation, right? Especially if they're they have a mid to high handicap. Yeah, you know, they're only hitting so many greens. Well, you're already going to you're all like let's say you're hitting, you know, let's say you're hitting a third of the greens. Let's say you're hitting six greens in regulation. Okay, well, 12 times you're already working your butt off trying to get up and down. So you've already got to like have a pretty good putting day to really protect yourself if you're missing 12 greens. That's that's you know, 12 one putts right there, you're gonna have to come up with, which is asking a lot of anybody. And if if you're not hitting that many greens, the chances that you're gonna one putt 12 times pretty slim to none. Well, let's not give it away on the greens we do hit in regulation. You know what I mean? Let's not, like you were saying, let's not blow up by the hole and turn what should be a standard par into a bogey when I'm already gonna make bogeys because I'm not gonna scramble 100% 12 times per round. Like that's just not gonna happen. Yeah. So I think to your point, you know, learning how to lag putt is definitely beneficial. But I think process-wise, you know, giving yourself the opportunity to walk up to the hole, uh, if it's outside of 20 feet, leaving the pen in, which is gonna help some depth perception kind of issues, and then really uh trying to have an intimate understanding of how hard you're going to hit that golf ball prior to hitting it and being able to kind of call out that speed, I think that's gonna do a lot of good for a lot of people.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:05

I also think it's important in tournament play because there will be times where making a bogey it you did a good job to make a bogey. Like you got out of position and you cannot make the double. Um, you got to find a way just to lose one. And if you get yourself back in position and now you're hitting into the green, well, let's say you didn't hit it that close and you're 30 feet. Well, like now there's a whole immense amount of pressure on this lag putt because you really don't want the five footer to promote it. Yeah. Yeah, you yeah, you don't that now you're that's when things can speed up on you. Yeah, for sure. So I I always think that lag putting is such a such a skill that is needed.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:00

in especially tournament play, but yeah, we should be getting better at it. I mean, you know, do I think lab putters make everybody a better putter? No, I don't. But you know, the the the technology that's went into putting and putters, I should say, uh is pretty wild anymore. Like it used to be just a complete afterthought. People are out there putting with God knows what. But you know, with with the ability to have a putter that has a high MOI, uh, isn't wanting to twist all these things, you know, it's not even really about and I hate to say this because I I I think it's dumbed it down a little bit, but you don't even have to hit the center of the putter anymore to to kind of manage the speed and the roll that you're getting off the putter. So, you know, we should be getting better at this, but I think a lot of people don't necessarily have a good process for it and don't really spend any time working on that skill, especially if they need to. So I I I think there's a lot of merit to what you're saying in terms of you know making this more important, especially if you're somebody that just has a ton of pots every round. And those guys exist. You know, it's I hate this about the game but just you know so many people five feet and in is good. And it's like no it's not like there's there's not a week that goes by where I'm not watching a professional golf tournament where someone doesn't lip one and miss it from like three feet and in and those are the best players in the world and and we're not of that ilk. So you know we need to be putting these out if you want to get better at putting putt everything out. Like quit picking up putts like that's that's not helping anybody and that's where we really see like you're saying the premium in the lag putting show up because you know the difference between a three footer and a four footer is a mile for a lot of people. You know I mean it it really is a huge difference. So even though we don't get the excitement out of oh I hit my driver 10 yards farther than that like I get it like that's that's 30 feet. That feels like a big gain. You know just chipping it one foot closer to the hole really can make a difference.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:11

Yeah I think this is probably a good spot to stop us for this week. I know you've got more lessons you're doing this evening. You were just grinding away at it.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:23

Grinding away uh no it's good. I mean it's that time of year. You know I enjoy this time of year. It it's it's fun. You know a lot of not everybody's like a sicko like us and a lot of people especially up here up north you know take the winter off so we start seeing people we haven't seen all winter uh people definitely got the bug like I said you know we catch one of these 70 degree days up here and people are running naked in the streets because they just got cabin fever so bad. Um but no it's it's a good time of year. I'm happy that people are coming out. I'm happy that people are working on their golf games uh and I'm super pumped man like I'm excited for you and the success that you've already had this year. We haven't had to haven't had to wait very long to see some of the the hard work pay off uh I had a virtual client I'm pretty pretty pleased about um he he lives farther north than I do he lives way up there in northern Michigan uh and you know he shot a you know basically he hasn't played any golf he uh ran out to Arizona and shot a 77 which I think is a pretty darn good score for him uh especially first round out in the year you told me he beat his personal best by nine shots or something something something like that I mean that's incre yeah that's incredible different yeah yeah so I mean it's it's fun man like this is the time of year to where you know we're kind of paying off a lot of the hard work that that we've been putting in in the offseason and starting the journey for a lot of other people and getting them ready for this year and and getting ready to go on that ride. So you know for some of us we're going down the roller coaster for others we're going up.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:00

It just it's a it's an interesting time of year. And we've got uh we've got you coming down back down to Chattanooga here in a couple weeks and uh I'm hopeful that we can get some good uh video content of some stuff that we can put out and um I know we should probably talk about this off air but maybe maybe we do a podcast in person.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:22

Oh we definitely we definitely should that would be kind of cool that'd be fun that would be cool yeah so uh I I definitely think we got some good ideas uh once again you know I know you bring it up a lot and and I see it as well but you know the feedback's been really really good keep it coming uh you know if you have requests for topics if you have questions to things we talk about you're always welcome to reach out to either myself or Chuck you can reach out to Chuck at Hudlove423 did I get that right you got it right I got it right Hudlove423 on Instagram or you can reach out to me directly at the forceplate guy please do not forget the I get that every week people are like I can't find you uh it's the forceplate guy or you can find us at measured golf on Instagram as well but if you're listening to this on a podcast uh thank you very much please be sure to subscribe and download uh all the episodes so you never miss a thing. You also can watch the video on our YouTube channel and you will also notice that we have a lot of our video content getting into the actual golf swing available there on our YouTube channel as well. So uh been a lot of fun. Really thankful to have Chuck helping us out with the podcast. I think he has made it at least a hundred times better than it was before uh and as always you know if if you if you got questions if you got feedback we're always open to it we always want to hear it we are here to try to make content that people want to listen to so let us know what it is you want to hear and we will do our very best to make sure that it makes it onto the podcast. So I think that's going to do it for us. We appreciate everybody tuning in as always and until next time keep grinding